“[W]e led the charge against British Petroleum following the 2005 explosion at the BP Texas City Refinery that killed 15 people,” Beaumont attorney Brent Coon declared on a website launched five years later to exploit the subsequent tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. “Now, we’re preparing to take on the oil giants once again.”
Coon led the charge all right. While it accomplished little for the alleged victims of the spill, it did enrich lawyers posing as crusaders for justice. Now, however, it looks like Coon is about to be hoisted with his own petard.
True to form, Double-Dip Coon participated in the Deepwater Horizon MDL while at the same time retaining the right to sue BP separately on behalf of the thousands of clients he claimed to represent.
One of those clients was Gary Pesce of Ocean Flex OMTS, who filed a $1 million suit in Harris County District Court last summer against Coon and his firm.
“This is a case of lawyer neglect turned deception,” Pesce asserts in his suit. “The lawyers were hired to represent plaintiff in his economic loss claims stemming from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. But the greed associated with maintaining a massive BP docket without adequate resources required the lawyers to neglect their duties.”
Pesce’s claims were dismissed in 2016 because Coon & Co. missed a court deadline.
“But the lawyers did not notify plaintiff of this dismissal and instead led him on to believe that the claims were still alive and well, working their way through the settlement process,” the suit states. “Meanwhile, the lawyers were secretly appealing plaintiff’s claims hoping to obtain a reversal, but the appeal was eventually dismissed because the appeal was filed more than eight months late.”
Coon responded to Pesce’s suit with a motion to compel arbitration.
Whatever the forum for adjudication, Coon looks to be a loser. He should have thought about how well he could swim before he waded into deep water, and he might want to think about cutting his losses.